Not Surprising at All

FiveThirtyEight has a new article up that illustrates how education and religion factor in to this presidential election. The findings are pretty much what you’d expect, but you may be interested in reading the full article anyway.

Post navigation

52 thoughts on “Not Surprising at All”

Comment navigation

Hi Nate, as an Aussie I look on with some alarm but a little detachment too. But I can’t help feeling that there must be people who would make better Presidents than these two, which must indicate that the system isn’t working as it should, whether the system’s fault or the people’s. It is much the same here in Australia, though perhaps not as bad. As a christian, I’m particularly disturbed to think that so many christians in the US are so naive as to think that Trump is a christian and has christian values – or even decent values.

Reinforces the thought that Obama is such a glorious exception – a competent, intelligent, compassionate and well-spoken President.

“As a christian, I’m particularly disturbed to think that so many christians in the US are so naive as to think that Trump is a christian and has christian values – or even decent values.”

Well uncleE, there is overwhelming evidence that Christians support Trump over Hillary. You like to use overwhelming evidence to support your views so these Christians must be right in this matter and you must be wrong. Eh?

unkleE with all do respect, your statements above again give people concern. I don’t like Hillary or Trump, but how are you able to discern who is Christian and who is not ? What separates your ability to do this from an Isis leader to determine 137 people in Paris should have died last November ?

And why should Christians only vote for Christians ? Who determines what religion the candidate is. Why does it matter ?

Hillary is part of the machine that brought us here. Promising free college or a free this and that when we have a deficit and an absurd amount of national debt sounds crazy to me and too much like pandering to voters who want free stuff. An exit tax? I don’t even get it. I just don’t like it and I don’t like her. And the emails… if she was only sending emails from her personal account, then maybe that’s one thing, although still weird or naive or even shady, but building your very own personal server – it’s just too much. But I can see where people see her as a less crappy choice to Trump.

Trump, the dude’s unpredictable and a little too quick to spout out stuff about discriminating based on religion. And in general, I think people who say whatever’s on their mind are foolish. I don’t like him, but at the same time I can see where people see that he has like 5 kids that turned out pretty well, that he’s been successful in business, despite 4 bankruptcies and if you ignore stepping on the little guy…. I can get that they see him as a radical who could change the way things are done in Washington – my fear is that change could look like anything – even the scary and the insane, and I’m not ready to buy in.

There are no good choices. Even the 3rd party selections…

American politics is concerned with soundbites and polls and bases its success on ignorance, which none of them try to correct – they’re too busy playing to that ignorance because they want people divided by race, economic status, education, etc because that’s how they get a loyal base, and how they can convince and persuade people to keep voting along these broken lines, so that they can remain in power – and more and more i’m thinking they want to build more and more control. The patriot act, and little by little encroaching more and more…

Maybe some of that is inevitable as a population grows, But i’d like to preserve as much actual freedom as possible. But I’m no libertarian either. We need some regulation and this Epi-pen issue is a good example of why. We government, and we need taxes to support it, but at some point we can easily cross the line from too little to too much.

It makes me sick, really, and I can’t support it.

Do you listen to those idiots at the political rallies? They’re cheering and screaming as if they were 15 year old girls at a beetles concert in the 60’s… It’s madness. Why on earth would anyone be that excited about these two? I can get, “well crap, I hate both of them, but I hate this one just a little less,” but I cannot seem to fathom the hysterical infatuation that the louder supporters convey.

I think UnkleE is just doing what the rest of us do, we make judgements based on the way people act and what we observe them do or don’t do.

If UnkleE perceives that the fundamental traits of christian is outside of the way Trump acts, then is that any different than us defining a political position as “not democrat” based on the stated positions, or “anti-capitalist” based on economic positions?

I’m not saying I think you’re point is all wrong. I think some believers try to play god and decide who’s in the kingdom or who’s out of it, reaching far beyond their place – but here I think UnkleE is not guilty of that; I think he just sees trump as maybe a womanizer, an arrogant blowhard, and possibly unloving – so I can get it, I can see where someone might think that Trump isn’t a “Christian,” especially if they think a “true christian” doesn’t just believe in jesus, but is also someone who strives to live by those values.

Point well taken, William. The reason I took exception with unkleE is that he is a “numbers” guy. How many times have we heard him use the phrase “overwhelming consensus . And yet here he is defying what millions of Americans feel by saying they are wrong and he is right.

Many of us who were once Christians were taught that one’s Christianity was between God and themselves. Only.

Approximately one month ago, the prediction gurus were giving Hillary an over 80% chance of winning the American presidential election. Today they are giving her just slightly over 50% chance of winning.

When Trump announced his candidacy way back when, I laughed. What a joke. He hasn’t got a chance. Then he started winning a few primaries. Then I thought, “It’s a fluke. There is no way he will win the Republican nomination.” When he won the Republican nomination, I laughed: “Hillary is going to slaughter him!”

I am no longer laughing. The know-nothing, bigoted, vindictive, thin-skinned Donald just may be the next President of the United States—the most powerful man in the world.

We should all be very afraid. The entire world should be very afraid!

Read this political “guru’s” perspective:

“Jonathan Chait: “So what do the polls say? FiveThirtyEight, Silver’s site, gives Clinton a 51.5 percent chance of winning. The Upshot, the New York Times calculator, gives her a 69 percent chance. (Both forecasts are based mostly on polling results.) Silver’s forecast makes Clinton the equivalent of a football team that is a 1-point favorite. The Upshot’s forecast makes her the equivalent of a 5.5-point favorite.”

“If your football team is either a 1-point favorite or a 5.5-point favorite, then you should be deeply concerned about the chance of losing. If the outcome is not a football game but the chance that the Executive branch falls under the control of a bigoted, uninformed, dictator-admiring man-child, you should be more than concerned. You should be freaked out.”

And I do not like Trump at all, for plenty of reasons that should be obvious, but I want to say something that may sound like I’m defending him, but I am not.

It’s the tax returns. Does anyone believe the IRS is going to let him get by with anything illegal, or let him skate without paying his due taxes? He’s being audited.

Releasing tax returns is not a constitutional requirement to run for any office, and it’s not really even for “transparency,” it’s a political tool used to show the voters how much more money someone makes than the rest of us, designed to make us envious and resentful, so that we see some big separation between us and them. I don’t care about anyone’s tax returns.

And besides that, the way Clinton was surmising all the bad and sinister reasons that Trump must have for keeping his returns secret, should probably make all us wonder even more why she deleted government emails and created her own personal server to divert them and hide them. If keeping tax returns secret, which isn’t illegal or against any requirement, means you’re hiding bad stuff, then what about mishandling, hiding and deleting government emails which is against the law and well established ComSec procedures and protocols? What does that imply she was hiding?

And Trump was too caught up in himself to even turn that around on her last night. She gift-rapped it, handed it to him, and he still missed. I just can’t do it; I can’t vote for either one.

Clinton may be a liar but she is knowledgeable and steady handed. Trump is ignorant on most issues and temperamentally unstable. A vote for Clinton is a vote for the status quo. A vote for Trump is a vote for going over the cliff.

On the email thing, it was a bad decision, but I haven’t seen any evidence to suggest that it was done for any malicious purpose. As someone who works in IT, I can tell you that it’s very common for companies (and sometimes famous individuals) to have their own email server. Some companies are moving away from it now because of very secure options like Gmail, but those are usually only smaller companies. Hillary has been the right wing’s scapegoat for decades, so I’m not surprised that she would want to maintain control of her own emails. Whether or not their private server was actually more secure is kind of moot — they may have believed it would be more secure. Furthermore, in all the emails that have become public, nothing nefarious was in them. Secure government emails operate on their own server anyway. As I understand it, they can only be accessed from specific secure terminals, so Hillary’s private server has nothing to do with that.

Regardless, when you consider all the crap surrounding Trump, I really don’t see how anyone can paint them with the same brush. It’s like comparing the Surgeon General with Dr Nick. He has a long track record of shady business deals, sexist and racist remarks and behavior, and poor judgment. While Hillary is certainly not perfect, her track record has displayed intelligence and a commitment to service.

To me, this is the clearest election we’ve seen in a very long time. I can easily see why some people would have preferred Romney or McCain over Obama. But this? I don’t see how anyone could prefer Trump over Clinton (or even see them as the same), unless they’ve been won over by some of the right wing propaganda against her. Even if the deficit is a concern, her policies are nowhere near as detrimental as Trump’s would be.

Personally, I think Trump is so abysmal that even people who don’t like Hillary should be compelled to vote for her, even over any 3rd party candidate. Especially people who live in swing states. I live in Alabama — the race is already decided here. I’ll definitely vote, but it probably won’t make a real difference. But if you live in Florida, Ohio, Colorado, etc — your vote is extremely important!

Does any of that resonate with you, William? If not, I’d like to hear why. It honestly surprises me that you view Trump and Clinton so similarly. What am I missing?

I don’t think the status quo is all that terrible. Could it be better? Absolutely. Do we have some serious problems? Yes! But in many ways, I think we’re much better off than we’ve been in the past.

Also, I think sudden, revolutionary-style waves of change can be problematic. I think smaller, slower, pragmatic change is preferable. It may not be as sexy, but it tends to keep other aspects of society from going off the rails.

I don’t like Trump at all. I don’t see he and Clinton as the same, but I do see both as detestable in their own way.

I don’t really think the emails are that big of a deal, but i do think they’re a bigger deal than Trump’s tax returns. I think if she’s going to make a huge deal out of those, and guess all sorts of negative and terrible reasons why he’d keep those hidden, that it makes much more sense for hidden and deleted emails to be bigger deal than tax returns that are going through an audit. That was my only point there, although there is government ComSec protocols and regulations, and i’d very much doubt that any of them included personal servers and private email accounts, and very, very likely had rules against such. While I’ve been guilty of a being hypocrite myself, it’s never easy to leave alone, especially on this size stage, especially with the grievance to so large.

I do not think the country will burn down, regardless of who gets elected. Trump scares me, but it’s not as if he’ll have free reign to harass muslims, or declare war, or set policy, etc. Congress and the supreme court will get in the way, but I would not want him there, and i think it will be a mistake.

But while Hillary isn’t likely to oppress anyone, I am not sure her term would be without negative consequences either. I dont like her economic plans and think they’ll actually make things worse, although it may not manifest right away. And as long as the Republicans hang on to one or both houses, we’ll see even more gridlock (this is one is also a fault of the republicans and I think they share more of the blame).

I dont think either do anything to help the growing racial divide – I think they both make it worse from different ends.

I think they’d both create problems on the international relations level, but from different ends.

I think Trump preys on people’s aggravation with system while Hillary preys on envy, race and gender.

I can see why some may vote for Trump because they’re thinking about a more conservative supreme court nominee, although I think they’re narrow view makes them practically blind.

I can see where people like Hillary because she’s more familiar and she’s not trump, although I think that’s pretty forgiving and overlooking a lot.

There’s not any good third party candidate, but even so, I think Gary Johnson, when compared to these two, makes the most sense. A wasted vote? maybe for some people, but not for me – because the “wasted vote” excuse:

1) assumes I’d rather one of the two front runners over another, and in this case, i’m not sure I do.
2) can only be true if everyone believes it – not because it actually is true.
3) a victory doesn’t have to measured by securing POTUS, but could be measured with as little as 5% of the popular vote.
4) ignores the idea that the person who appears to be the best candidate should get my vote. People can vote how they like, but I’d rather vote for the best choice, even if I think that choice has a slim chance of winning – because maybe if everyone did that, we’d have avoided a lot of the problems we face now.
5) whoever wins, will win by more than my one vote anyways, so along those lines, no matter how I vote, it’s wasted.

I don’t think it’s that hard to see why both are bad choices. I don’t think it’s hard to understand why someone wouldn’t want to waste a vote on either.

“He has a long track record of shady business deals, sexist and racist remarks and behavior, and poor judgment. While Hillary is certainly not perfect, her track record has displayed intelligence and a commitment to service.”

This depends on how you look at it, and it could just as easily be said that,

“She has along track record of unethical legal deals, diplomatic and government correspondence cover ups, shady Clinton Foundations financial actions, and poor judgement on foreign policy and the Iraq war. While Trump is certainly not perfect, and he runs off at the mouth sometimes, but he has raised 5 well spoken and successful children, and a track record that displays knowledge in business and finance, and astounding economic success.”

I just don’t like either. I think a lot of work is needed to make either look less bad, and even then, that’s all you get – not someone that looks good, but still just someone who looks bad.

There’s not any good third party candidate, but even so, I think Gary Johnson, when compared to these two, makes the most sense. A wasted vote? maybe for some people, but not for me – because the “wasted vote” excuse:

1) assumes I’d rather one of the two front runners over another, and in this case, i’m not sure I do.
2) can only be true if everyone believes it – not because it actually is true.
3) a victory doesn’t have to measured by securing POTUS, but could be measured with as little as 5% of the popular vote.
4) ignores the idea that the person who appears to be the best candidate should get my vote. People can vote how they like, but I’d rather vote for the best choice, even if I think that choice has a slim chance of winning – because maybe if everyone did that, we’d have avoided a lot of the problems we face now.
5) whoever wins, will win by more than my one vote anyways, so along those lines, no matter how I vote, it’s wasted.

I like Gary Johnson pretty well, and he’d obviously make a better President than Trump. I disagree with him pretty strongly on fiscal issues, though. As far as your reasons for voting for him, I think 4 is the best. To me, 5 is committing the same mistake that you address in 2. As to your 1st point, if you really don’t have a preference between the two, then I guess I see your point. I’m just surprised that you don’t have a preference.

I think you make a fair point when you took my generalization and turned it around. But to clarify, I do think the facts show that even though he appears to be a great businessman on the surface, the details prove that he’s not what people first expect when they hear that phrase. He’s definitely more like the Atlantic City casino owner caricature. And the way his kids have turned out is not necessarily because he was a stellar parent.

On the other hand, I think closer inspection of the criticisms against Hillary show that her intentions have usually been good. Also, some of the generalizations simply aren’t true when you dig in deeper.

Anyway, I don’t think we’ll likely get anywhere by pushing this further. It just surprised me a bit since we see religion so similarly.